[8] Although Ashurbanipal's final year is often repeated as 627 BC,[9][10] this follows an inscription at Harran made by the mother of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus nearly a century later.
The final contemporary evidence for Ashurbanipal being alive and reigning as king is a contract from the city of Nippur made in 631 BC.
[4] To get the attested lengths of the reigns of his successors to match, most scholars agree that Ashurbanipal either died, abdicated or was deposed in 631 BC.
[15] A land grant from Aššur-etil-ilāni to his rab šaqi (a general serving him since he was a young boy) Sîn-šumu-līšir suggests that Ashurbanipal died a natural death.
[15] Excavations at Nineveh from the time around Ashurbanipal's death show fire damage, indicating that the plot perhaps resulted in some violence and unrest within the capital itself.
Excavations of his palace at Kalhu, one of the more important cities in the empire and a former capital, may indicate that he was less boastful than his father as it had no reliefs or statues similar to those that his predecessors had used to illustrate their strength and success.
In c. 628 BC, Josiah, ostensibly an Assyrian vassal and the king of Judah in the Levant, extended his land so that it reached the coast, capturing the city of Ashdod and settling some of his own people there.